Flipkart Ping allows users to chat and shop with their friends

Users can share images, wishlists, carts and chat with their phone book contacts with Flipkart Ping. The feature is invite only and will make the app size go up by about 2 MB.Harsimran Julka | ET Bureau | Updated: August 26, 2015, 08:07 IST

Update: Do read our closer look into Flipkart Ping and why it is an interesting move.

Earlier: During a 30-minute meeting at a coffee shop in the capital on Tuesday, Flipkart Chief Product Officer Punit Soni pulled out his phone and took a photo of the shirt worn by the person sitting next.

He then popped up on his mobile all shirts on the Flipkart platform matching the checkered design. He shared the image with friends within Flipkart’s mobile app through a new chat feature, asking if the shirt will suit him.

It was just a demo of the chat app, Ping, launched on Tuesday. But imagine asking 10 camera experts their opinion via a WhatsApp kind of chat while shopping a Nikon camera through your mobile app.

Or, messaging the online seller asking him to deliver the package at your office and not home. And then, chatting directly with the brand and online customer support via a messenger, in case you get a broken piece.

Features such as these are on the roadmap for India’s largest e-commerce company as it tries to make mobile app-based shopping a more enriching and fun-filled experience.

“Shopping in real-life terms is a fun experience where you share and show friends before buying. Online shopping till now was an isolating experience where people clicking on phones while sitting in cubicles. We are trying to emulate social shopping with this chat feature,” said Soni.

The currently invite-only feature has increased the app size by about 2 MB. Once the resting is over, the feature will be rolled out to all users.

The shift in Flipkart’s focus to mobile app experience is driven by a major shift in its user base to mobile phones - to 70% now from 20% a year earlier. Flipkart is not alone in trying to make full use the plethora of possibilities opened up this shift. Last month, rival Snapdeal launched a mobile marketplace app called Shopo wherein shoppers directly chat with sellers and vice versa through a mobile messenger.

“Mobile is one of the key drivers fueling the growth of e-commerce. In line with this, our mobile-based open marketplace will allow businesses as well as individuals to harness the power of the Internet instantly through conversations,” said Snapdeal Chief Executive Kunal Bahl.

Alibaba-backed mobile marketplace Paytm is also launching a messenger app in the next three months. “We will also add features of all other social networks … and some more card-based infrastructure where you can share deals,” CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma told ET last week.

In India, it is estimated that 40% of all online commerce happens through mobile, compared with under 20% in the US. In China, the world’s largest mobile Internet market, one can book a taxi, shop for clothes or even transfer money through mobile messaging app WeChat. Flipkart, however, said none of the web firms in the world were building apps with deep linking technology as its Ping.

The chat app was built by a Bengaluru-based team of 30 people in nine months. “With Ping, all conversations are saved within the invite; not possible with other apps,” said Peeyush Ranjan, head of engineering at Flipkart.

The app can work on a very low bandwidth and on older OS versions as Android 2.0. “It transfers only 80 KB of data compared to other social apps which transfer about 2 MB per connection,” Ranjan said. (Image via Flipkart's Twitter account)